this a meeting of the Boston school committee I'm chairperson Jerry Robinson we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I want to welcome everyone who is joining us tonight in person on Boston City TV and on Zoom I'm going to ask everyone here in the chamber to please turn off the volume on your laptops or other devices so it does not interfere with the audio for tonight's meeting thank you for your cooperation tonight's meeting documents are posted on the committee's web page bostonpublicschools.org school committee under the July 17th meeting link for those joining us in person you can access the meeting documents by scanning the QR code that's posted by The Doors the meeting documents have been translated into all of the major BPS languages any translations that are not ready prior to the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they are finalized the meeting will be rebroadcast on Boston City TV and posted on the school committee's web page and on YouTube the recording will be available in all of the BPS languages the committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation virtually in Span Spanish Haitian Creole Habano cantones Mandarin Vietnamese and American Sign Language Zoom interpretation feature has been activated Zoom participants should click the globe icon at the bottom of your screen to select your language preference I'd like to remind everyone to speak at a slower Pace to assist our interpreters we'll begin the meeting with the approval of minut I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the June 17th 2024 school committee meeting is there a motion so move thank you is there a second second is there any discussion or objection to the motion is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous account hearing none the minutes are approved we'll now move on to the superintendent's report I present to you our superintendent Mary Skipper thank you chair uh it's going to be a bit of a lengthy report this evening uh as we have a number of topics to cover but um I wanted to begin by just taking a moment and expressing my deep sadness about the passing of a beloved member of our District's technology team Andy Horan um Andy was the backbone of the office of instructional and informational technology which we know as oiit and worked at BPS for 25 years he began when the internet was first making its way into our schools through dialup modems and desktops he continued to guide BPS forward for the next 20 years I got to know Andy during my early years in BPS and you know um we had a we grew together uh with technology for sure but you couldn't find a more loyal dedicated caring person um and really just just the epitome of a professional than Andy he cared deeply about our students and our families and he was committed to supporting them and making sure that they had the tools they needed to succeed nothing pleased him more than to know he was helping a child get connected or a family get connected to information during the pandemic he spent a lot of time in the parking lot of the Campbell building in Dorchester talking with students families and caregivers really ensuring that they had laptops uh that they had hotspots that they had access to the resources they needed to keep their learning remotely please join me in sending our thoughts and condolences to Andy's family especially his wife Audrey she's also a second grade teacher at the bit School in rosindale as well as to his many friends throughout the district and outside of the district uh and especially Andy's colleagues in BPS technology uh chair with your permission I'd like to hold a moment of silence for Andy excuse thank you tonight is also uh the last school committee meeting for BPS technology director uh in Chief Information officer Mark rine um he is the person who's been behind the scenes at each school committee meeting who make sure that everything works smoothly for us here in this room and for those of you watching at home managing the technology be behind this meeting is just one of the many aspects uh of Mark's job as it's evolved over the years as the leader of our information and instructional technology unit and he's been doing that job for 10 years and supporting ing school committee as Mark and I were talking about 14 years he began his career as a fifth grade teacher at the orberger school in West Roxberry and he later taught fifth grade at the Blackstone School in 2011 he joined the central office's oit team where he served in several roles eventually becoming the director and I I had the privilege of working with Mark uh for many of those years technology changes fast and under Mark's leadership this district has stayed one step ahead always he's been there to help us Implement and adapt with patience and always with support Mark always puts students first and he's prioritized their privac privacy and their safety over those many years during the pandemic he acted quickly to ensure every student had access to a Chromebook so that they could continue to learn remotely this was a massive unprecedented undertaking we're grateful for his leadership during this very challenging time and honestly his leadership every day he's respected he's a wellbeloved colleague and he will very much be missed especially by me please join me in thanking Mark for his hard work over his many many years in BPS and know that we wish you mark the best of luck in whatever that next adventure is uh I'd like to begin my superintendent's Report with an update on the first week of this year's summer programming which we are calling the best summer ever summer programming began on Monday July 8th and I'm happy to report that it's off to a terrific start school may not be in session but the learning continues and the BPS team is hard at work to give our students and families a wide variety of opportunities and activities this Summer that are both enriching and fun earlier this week I joined mayor Wu and our partner Boston after school and Beyond Chris Smith for an event at courageous sailing in Charlestown where fifth grade campers showed us what they had learned about sailing the students have become so good at sailing that they did most of the work on the boats and I can attest to that the two students that I had on my boat they kept us safe the entire town uh the program also brings in representatives from places like Boston Water and Sewer to teach about environmental safety on top of learning how to sail thanks to the commitment of dozens of Partners we are offering more than 130 programs at 88 sites around the city and at 55 Boston public schools and an additional 32 sites like courageous sailing in total there are more than 14,000 students engaged in a variety of educational programs as part of what we call our fifth quarter programming and that includes our summer learning acmy our course in High School Credit Recovery our early childhood education programming our exam School initiative and all kinds of recreational opportun commities that are supported by our BPS Partners we offer a wide range of options so there's something fun for everyone including Athletics entrepreneurship literacy development earn and learn exp experiential learning mental health supports and career exploration um Chief Mall Sanchez Deputy Anna tarez have just been amazing in ensuring along with our site directors that it's Flawless this summer and that you know most important students are at the Mentor in their learning and their experiences uh few examples we had more than a 100 students participated in the office of student supports you got it girl program at Emanual College in the Fenway over the past two weeks this is now in its second year Chief Cory McCarthy's um been spearheading this program basketball yoga Double Dutch are offered daily under the supervision of dedicated coaches this week they added social skill groups from Franciscan children's hospital and some mindful resilience sessions with Coach Leah a BPS teacher at BLS and our Friday's campers are thrilled to participate in a theme Day last year last week was crazy hair day um as you can see from the slides you know there's just so much activity fun Smiles learning uh companionship between kids in our extended school year this year we had 5,7 students who were eligible to participate in our extended school year programming to ensure special education students continue to receive Services during the summer months and maintain key skills last week 1679 students participated in this program and we expect that number to increase this week in addition 20 2 2,857 students have actually rsvped that they intend to participate in the program this summer and that's one of the largest numbers ever I want to share a few photos with vi from the McKay esy site of students who earned a visit the school store as part of the schoolwide rewards program developed by the program's directors schoolwide rewards is designed to help students improve their academic social communication self-regulation life skills safety and Vocational learning opportunities during the school day this is an activity that brings Joy to the students while they learn one student appears to have decided on the sunglasses which was a very wise Choice given the weather uh within the summer program sponsored by the office of multilingual and Multicultural education or what we call omme uh this is also part of the fifth quarter there are 280 multilingual Learners registered overall there are 5,163 multilingual Learners registered across all programs or 37% of the total number of registered students thanks to omme team's intentional recruitment the percentage of participating multilingual Learners this summer is actually higher than the district percentage of multilingual Learners in BPS which is at 31% Additionally the 37% includes only students identified as current English Learners if we also include former English Learners that number goes up to nearly 47% I want to take a moment and acknowledge the work of chief of office of multiculture and multilingual education Joelle gamir and her team for their commitment to inclusivity and their targeted Outreach they're making sure that multilingual students are well represented and supported in our summer programs we also have more than 340000 students registered to take part in our summer learning acmy as Fifth Quarter programming and about three 3,000 students for course completion and High School Credit Recovery and that's a number that I'm I'm really happy about because it makes sure that our high school students are making up credit so that they can continue to be promoted and make progress toward graduation this summer BPS transportation is providing transportation to nearly 3,000 students for BPS and charter school students participating in extended school year students attending the exam School initiative and students attending summer programs at out of District special education schools with the start of summer transportation BPS Transportation began our use of Zoom not to be confused Zoom but zuum which is an integrated Transportation platform which includes the introduction of GPS navigation tablets on our school buses and the zoom mobile app for BPS parents and Guardians with the Zoom app parents and Guardians can view their students bus assignment track bus rides in real time receive automated delay notifications and alerts when the buses are arriving and get notified when the student gets on and off the school bus by the end of the first week of its use nearly 90% of bus drivers working this summer were able to successfully utilize the zoom system while completing their routes in partnership with transdev we're working to ensure all bus drivers and transportation staff receive the necessary training and support to successfully utilize the platform prior to the start of the 2425 school year with this Zoom app we're committed to improving transparency reliability and convenience for students and families who use the BPS school bus and just a huge shout out to Dan and to the entire Transportation team for really being Innovative thinking ahead and really trying new and different ways to be able to support our families the exam School initiative or what we called ESI is a BPS Equity initiative within the office of opportunity gaps to diversify the BPS exam school admissions ESI is designed to increase opportunities for students from traditionally underrepresented communities black black and latinx students students with IEPs multilingual students Asian-American and Pacific Islander students and students experiencing lwi income status the SI program is a targeted Invitation Only four-week School uh summer course for current fourth fifth and 7eventh grade students designed to build upon their capacity for the academic rigor required when applying to the city's three exam schools and this year we added stem and arts experiences to the ESI schedule to enhance student analytical and creative thinking this year 351 students are registered to participate in ESI initially we had 279 students who were registered but we're able to increase that number to offer the opportunity to more students and so this increase from 197 register registrations during the summer of 2023 so as you can see that program is really in demand and we're trying to meet that demand last week BPS and the City of Boston celebrated the launch of the Boston Summer eats initiative this is an effort to close the summer food Gap by providing free freshly prepared meals at locations such as Comm community centers and schools a partnership of BPS the mayor's office of food Justice the YMCA of Greater Boston Boston centers for Youth and families and project bread these all support the Statewide program in partnership with the Department of Elementary and secondary Ed and hundreds of meal providers in Massachusetts the free program which provides free mails for all bostonians 18 and under kicked off at the mild AV to eight school at an event that featured a puppet show food tastings and a healthy nutritious locally sourced meal going forward BPS will offer a free breakfast and lunch to all Boston youth ages 18 and under at more than 100 locations across the city including our summer program sites until late August no identification or pre-re pre-registration is required and for a list of the sites you can go to Project bread.org summer eats job applications for summer youth employment are now closed and a lot of programs have started over the past couple weeks according to data from the city of Boston about 6,000 youth have already been successfully hired by over 115 programs in the city of those more than 50% are BPS students the city is fin finalizing the onboarding for all the remaining youth selected in the next couple of weeks as programs continue to ramp up our city Partners will share final hired numbers and BPS impact at the end of the summer once all Partners have been audited and now something close to chair Robinson's heart you may begin seeing the iconic BPS yellow t-shirts around town which speaks to the annual countdown to kindergarten program um and this is fully underway BPS will be hosting kindergarten days throughout the month of August at BPL branches across the city as of the week of July 8th 6363 students have been assigned to the district's Early Learning programs for the upcoming Sy 2425 year including both returning and new students and early childhood and special ed placements we have 350 students assigned to k0 245 students assigned to K1 and 368 students assigned to K2 those numbers constantly change and increase um but that's what we had as of July 8th uh incoming BPS students will receive information by mail about their local kindergarten day where countdown staff will be leading upon activities and will be available to answer questions from families families are encouraged to visit our newly revised website uh which is at countdown to kindergarten. org there you'll find more details on our programming play groups kindergarten transition activities and registry information all new incoming kindergarteners will receive an invitation for the Sea of yellow Citywide Kindergarten Celebration on Friday September 6th from 4:30 to 7:30 at the Boston Children's Museum the Yellow School Readiness bags are available now at every Boston Public Library which includes a t-shirt fun activities and surprises for students and their families families also continue to participate in our family play week's camp which is pictured here at Margarita mise Academy the learn to play camps are designed for children ages birth to 5 years old and their parents and caretakers our comprehensive summer programming keeps our students active and engaged while they are out of school and it gives them the opportunity to strengthen their academic skills while discovering new talents and interests through enrichment activities alongside their peers again Dr Anna Taris Deputy superintendent of equity Comm community and family advancement is also here tonight to answer any follow-up questions the committee may have PPS Transportation director Dan Rosengard is also here to provide support if this question is around uh the new app Zoom uh next I want to provide you with a fourth quarter update on transformation schools the final report for school year 2023 24 as you know is part of the requirements that are in the systemic Improvement plan or what we call the Sip we're providing quarterly transformation updates to the committee the second and fourth quarter updates are part of the superintendent's report and the first and third quarter are formal reports that go more in depth more specifically the transformation office sh an in-depth report at the October 18th 2023 and April 10th 2024 school committee meetings I also provided a second quarter update on February 28th as part of my superintendence report transformation schools is the term BPS uses to refer to schools identified by Desi as requiring Assistance or intervention these are schools in the bottom 10% of the state accountability percentiles while school year 2324 is complete we do not yet have information on schools that may be exiting or entering status that information will be shared this fall once desie publishes their updated accountability determinant as you know primary support for our transformation schools comes from our transformation office in partnership with our Regional teams and the School Division in general chief of schools and accountability Drew eckleson is here to answer any questions that may come up specific to the transformation schools this quarterly report provides an opportunity to share updates in our three priority Improvement areas in the area of instruction and student academic performance we can observe some progress and also significant urgency for Accelerated growth data from more than a thousand classroom observations shows High usage of the district curriculum as well as progress toward holding students to high expectations for their work end of the year data from the map assessment shows improved growth this year in seven out of nine grade levels in reading and two out of nine grade levels in math our Improvement strategy in the coming year includes intensified instructional coaching and expanded collaboration with partner organizations focused on curriculum implement ation we look forward to analyzing mcast results and updated accountability Profiles In the late summer to better understand achievement patterns and to help refine our Improvement strategy in the area of school climate and culture we can see that survey results for staff and students are quite similar in our transformation and non-transformational ators and families about their school communities in the area of attendance we see both reductions in absenteeism and great urgency for further Improvement transformation schools show the same 4 percentage Point reduction in K to8 chronic absenteeism as non- transformation schools and showed a greater reduction in chronic absenteeism at the high school level than non- transformation schools however overall rates of absenteeism remain higher in our transformation schools particularly at the high school level we continue to try a range of strategies to address attendance including extensive Outreach this summer further addressing the attendance issue is a critical part of our Improvement strategy and I I think as you remember the win the day campaign we did in Region 8 which was a high school region as a pilot and we intend to expand on that comef fall one further area to mention is hiring the BPS office of human capital and the division of schools continue a close partnership around transformation hiring we posted positions early and have focused on a range of supports for schools as of early July we have submitted hiring rex on 90% 90% of our transformation teaching vacancies higher than last year and a higher percentage than non- transformation schools overall we see progress on several indicators but we will continue to feel the urgency to further accelerate student academic performance we look forward to the upcoming year and to updating the school committee on our progress relative to facilities you received a memo yesterday updating you on our facilities improvements and our ongoing work to prepare our school buildings for the return of students in the fall the memo includes updates on ongoing projects mba's accelerated repair program projects tools the status of 11 major projects under Capital planning and on the Ruth Batson Academy formerly known as bcla McCormick the Melvin H King South endies and the Blackstone Elementary School Deputy superintendent of operations Sam deina and interim chief of operations Brian Ford are also here tonight to provide you with any further answers to your questions the memo will be posted on the school committee's website bostonu schools.org school committee finally a few bright spots uh the office of Health and Wellness are holding popup events on Wednesday in July at Walker Pro uh playground which is 550 North Street in matapan from 4:30 until 5:30 families can participate in games and activities while learning about health and resources snacks water and giveaways are also provided School may not be in session but the BPS team is working hard to give our students and families a wide variety of opport unties and activities this Summer that are both enriching and fun 18 students from Boston International newcomers Academy which we call binka all recent immigrants to the United States spent two weeks sailing from Boston to Maine with the nonprofit World ocean school students learn to read nautical charts tie knots and steer the ship and develop team building skills all while living aboard the Schooner than a Sullivan several of the students kept the ship's log of their experiences which is translated into four languages at World oceans school.org one student wrote my favorite part of the day was driving the boat at the helm and I saw some dolphins that were in the water close to the boat the student also added I woke up to do anchor watch at 4 in the morning and that was hard and I bet it was what an incredible immersive learning opportunity for these students uh I wanted to also share some good news from Boston day and evening Academy through a program called bdaa 2.0 the five students pictured here participated in internships related to the construction trades as part of their High School experience the BDA 2.0 program initiated with a grant from the bar Foundation is designed to promote better outcomes for black and latinx students 29 students participate in Partnerships with different organizations including tremco construction project group this group that you see here Rondo andan Chris Lewis copen John Herrera Jonathan Montero and Macy Thompson went one step further and signed the inaugural cohort of students in the rising stars achieve green program which supported them to follow the international Union of painters and a lied trades apprenticeship pathway having met certain requirements these students are now eligible to complete the final steps toward becoming apprentice glazers and a step closer to careers in the green construction trade congratulations and best of luck in late June about 50 students from several of our high schools participated in a peer mediation training at Emanual College where they discussed issues related to school discipline and ways to deescalate emotional or difficult situations in the classroom so that all students can be involved with caring for others the members of the English High School baseball team our 2024 division 5 state champions were celebrated for their success and hard work last month during visits to the mayor's office and the Boston city council following a rally members of the team threw out the first pitch at the Red Sox game on Friday the 28th again congratulations for an amazing season into the entire team and that chair Robinson concludes my lengthy superintendent's report thank you superintendent and then I'll open it up for questions and discussion from the committee thank you madam chair and thank you superintendent for the report I say Mike thank you for your hard J and the is school committee meeting appreciate that you your hard work uh good look and you new uh time or new opportunity in your life okay um I have some question um um in the report I could see that we had an increase of 1,1 um 1100 students in comparison with last year and I believe that and I think that this is very good because we're opening um more doors for more students I would like to congratulate and um all the teachers par professionals that are working during the summer months and I have had the opportunity to go through some schools and um I could see the dedication that these um teachers have for our students for our children thank you for taking care of our children and thank you for creating those good memories of for of summer for our children okay my next question is regarding summer jobs for school students in the report thank you for sending it to the members of the school committee I could see so um also I would like to speak about the blacktone Blackstone school um I know that right now the Blackstone school um is closed I would like to know more about the plan um we have spoken the parents have um expressed concern regarding the conditions of the school um we want to know um before fall what what is going to happen you know we we're talking about the conditions of the floors bathrooms um and the infrastructure in general great uh so actually um see Deputy deina do you want to but I'm also thinking uh c yeah I'm not sure if Brian or interim coo Brian Ford and I will say uh Blackstone um so that was actually the where I went my first day for the summer school and uh so they have a very heavy schedule of Summer programming um and so the building is very full and Alive um in so many ways and so this will be one of the things about what we can and can't do relative to repair and so forth but um if you have specifics yeah just real briefly before turn over to Mr Ford um we are very cognizant of um the requests and needs that um the community has been asking for at the Blackstone and we're going to continue to work with our partners to explore what's possible and when and what budget cycle so we are doing a lot of work to the Blackstone um incrementally and we can speak a little bit more about what that is good evening my name is Brian Ford and term chief of operations and uh thank you for having me here tonight um there this summer we don't actually have a lot of major projects that are happening within the Blackstone because of what Deputy uh Dr depino was just saying in terms of the building being occupied but what we do ensure is that we are able to make minor repairs uh throughout the building so when that comes to the flooring Crew That's being uh working in the building to make sure that we're replacing some of the tiles that are in that area uh repairs to the ramp that's in disrepair out front as well as some of that uh entry for sideway we're able to make some of that uh Improvement and then we also have a ceiling crew that goes around and a painting crew that goes around within those spaces so we can provide um as much of a refresh to that building for that Community as possible while we still work on figuring out what the long-term plan for that space is so we could say that before the next school year starts um we're going to see some improvements that parents and students are going to be able to enjoy I I would say that you'll see likely Refreshments to the existing infrastructure I'm not sure if you could call it a level of enjoyment it might be it's definitely going to be clean uh we definitely do a very deep cleaning throughout the entire building you'll see that there's uh additional lighting that may have been repaired replaced ceiling work that would have been repaired and replaced uh tiles that are repaired and replaced as well as the exterior ramp that is being refreshed as well as much as we can do while the building is being occupied so um through the bathrooms cafeteria hallways um floors these are really in the need of urgent care yes well we're and we are making those improvements and Sensi of that as part of our summer cleaning and refreshing okay thank you welcome uh and Dr deina do you want to just address uh there is there are dollars uh for us to look at the Blackstone relative to the the overall work that needs to be done to the building in the capital budget yeah that's right so um we work closely with our city colleagues um with the capital budget to make sure that there was um some dollars uh earmarked to study what's possible um uh next we did do a similar study of of many years ago but that study has been outdated so we're going to take this opportunity to take another fresh look in the current context of what we're trying to do and we'll be able to provide more of an update as that work is going thank you thank you Mr TR yeah I U just a very very ignorant kind of question now you mentioned the uh software that will be helping out in terms of buses um would you talk a little bit about it how how does it help in cutting down on late buses and uh is that a GPS of software it is uh I think Dan can probably get into the details of it uh but my my lay understanding of it is that uh it gives us a sense of ridership that right now we don't have and it gives parents pieces of information about the bus arrival delays um where the bus is in ways that we don't currently have so we're in the the driver uh Workforce is been wonderful in um as the students get on being able to uh both use the software for the summer routes which could help us be more efficient with those routes as we see like how many students are using which routes um but also uh as we start to think about the training for parents uh so the parents know how to use the app so I think there's a couple of things that we're trying to Pilot right now to make uh the fall that much easier going forward but as far as the technical specific stand yeah thank you superintendent and and thanks for that question I'll try to be brief because I could talk about it all night um but I think the some of the primary benefits one is we're replacing paper directions with GPS navigation which is long overdue but especially when there's substitute or standby drivers running a route that makes it much much easier for them and in the past we would see probably the the biggest challenges when someone was doing a route for the first time with a paper print out so that's one big thing um the second main one as the superintendent said is this allows us to track ridership because the the bus drivers can tap the students on and off the bus and so whereas before we've never had accurate data on how many students and which students are riding the bus will now be able to gather that data and use that to improve the efficiency of routes and then I think the the third big one and and I'll try to stop after that is um from a operation standpoint we were entirely reactive in the past in that the only way we knew that a bus was running late was If a driver reported it or a parent called in to report it and then we had to you know pull up the GPS on the map and figure out where is the bus where's it supposed to be right now what's going on um now and I would invite anyone to to come join us in the second floor one day during uh you know morning or afternoon buses but now we have kind of a a giant map up on the screen with little green dots for all the buses out on the road and any buses that are running late switch from green to red and instantly somebody in dispatch at any of the bus yards or from our operations team here can say oh that bus just went red what's going on what do I have to do and follow up immediately and so you know we're still learning with the system and figuring out exactly how we'll use all this information to improve our operations and our Sops and all that but it it just gives us a lot more real-time information that we didn't have before so we can switch from kind of a reactive mindset to a proactive mindset thank you I hope that uh I won't be hearing more complaints from parents that that that say the waiting time for their children out there is is too long I hope they going to get down on that thanks a lot yeah and and the only other thing I would say is there will be a learning curve and so you know with the the start of September I think we will still especially as we go from 200 buses on the road to 640 we will see a learning curve initially but I think it's going to hopefully help us get better quickly great thanks a lot I have the question for transportation too if you you finish oh yeah sorry the transportation superintendent say um the transportation benefit 3,000 student right the 3,000 student how many is the Boston exactly a a b Boston public school because I have the chel and Boston Public how how how how long is the CH how long is the the you have that figure yeah I I don't have the exact number but I I think it's in the ballpark of about 2500 students for BPS opted in for esy transportation and then for exam School initiative uh we're estimating that about 250 students are riding those buses they're they're kind of open to anyone participating um but it's it we think it's about 200 to 250 students and then the remaining I think it's about 250 students are charter school students doing esy so it's around those numbers then in a given year uh uh with the 21,000 students that we transport what what number actually is Charter uh during the school year it's about I want to say it's about 6,000 to 6500 charter school students so it's about 25% of the total student population that we transport okay much larger more than thank you thank you thank you madam chair thank you superintendent for your report um first all my sympathy to the colleagues in the IT department on the passing of of Mr Horan who um Hogan Hogan Hogan excuse mean Andy right who um did so much over the years and and to Mr rine um your your leadership in this department has been incredible for a number of years and um people know you you know comment about oh what you do for these meetings and something which is like your your part-time fun little side job compared to what you really do and you know I remember standing in East Boston high school with you with all the work that you did and early in the pandemic to get all students Google Chromebooks and then standing there as students were coming in to have it repaired and replaced and figure out how to make them work and you made that happen for all of our students and most folks don't realize that you're also a national leader you are incredibly well respected by your peers in other large districts around the country and I know how much you are called on by the Council of City great City Schools to help advise other districts as well and you do that um without thought for time or anything else you just give to help all of our districts improve technology and there has been a scourge of districts across the country that have been hit by hackers and have been shut down and um how you sleep at night I have absolutely no idea just just worrying about that happening to Boston but I know you have been part of task force nationally and looking at that and how to protect and take care of our district from a technology Viewpoint and so I thank you for that and um the district is sad to see you go I know the superintendent is as well but fully understand your decision but thank you for what you have done for this district and you're not the only rine who has helped Boston Public Schools as well so I know it it's been a family tradition um so thank you um superintendent and and some of the things of your in in your remarks um I was really glad to hear about the increase in ESI it has been brought to our attention and public comment about how you know we thought it was open enrollment and then it was blocked and I'm glad we were able to increase that and we should look to continue to increase that and I know you said and I know it's always been two parts part of it is open to everyone and part of it is targeted initiative and we need to make sure that that continues to be um yeah and I just I just want to do a shout out because she's in the audience but Dr Draper like part of this is her her willingness and flexibility to serve all students and so that that in part um you know has enabled us to you know be able to get more students in there so great well thank you for that and it's an important initiative um I was also happy to hear the number of 3,000 students in credit recovery and how how do we feel that's going to impact specifically graduation I know we always hold a graduation for credit recovered students at the end of the year so I think um I could talk for a long time about this so I won't but um I think that uh one of the bright spots or the glimpses was that our dropout rate and I I kind I reported this but uh in many districts dropout rate increased uh dramatically in our district it ticked up and I am not under sizing that like it it ticked up in any tick up we want to be on but uh post pandemic you've seen Dropout rates like really increase multiple digits and ours ticked up our graduation rate slightly ticked down what was extremely hopeful was that in the extended engagement we were up like 3% which is a lot of kids that tells us that our students are staying with us our engagement efforts are working our credit recovery and the support that we're giving students to give them the confidence and the support to be able to graduate is there so we have a lot of students in that Pipeline and Credit Recovery over the summer is one of the places where if students don't participate they fall behind and so they then re-enter for the school year in the fall where they are behind a grade so it's very helpful to me and I've gone by a multiple of the credit recovery sites the students are engaged there's multiple ways are doing it some do are just purely on the online others are in small groups or working with tutor or working with teacher so it's really varying to what the student needs and I think that versatility is critical to making sure we're meeting kids where they are so this is something that um to me is is as I go around 3,000 high school students hopeful but also being flexible knowing that our high school kids want to work and need to work um so where we are able to being able to allow them to use technology flexibly to complete their credits so that they can also have a summer job so we're really working closely with pick and all of our partners at the Cityside uh to create as much of a flexible program as possible excellent thank you um two more points you talked about transformation schools and particularly you mentioned you you've seen some progress um and the end of year map dat I said seven of nine of nine grades increasing in reading and two of nine in math and I wonder if you could just and I I know we're probably waiting for mcast scores in the fall to kind of validate it I think map is considered a leading indicator right not a l and mcast is more of a lagging indicator but I'm wondering what you're thinking is the difference between the two is it because of the Equitable literacy work and you know has been a little bit longer help help me out your think yeah and and I think uh schools Chief uh eckelson you can certainly weigh in on this I I think you know we started with putting kind of the the worked down around literacy early on and I think you know that always takes when you when you're introducing a new way of looking at curriculum in in our case uh all of the work we're doing to calibrate instruction and grade level access of that instruction uh we're starting to see that fruit I think on the math side we did a bunch of work this past year uh doing the same thing in terms of beginning to calibrate math and introducing different curriculum I think it we will start to see that as well um I also think that you know things like our tutoring our acceleration acmy uh come up coming up with different ways for students to be able to um practice their skills and rebuild skills that might be missing on the math side uh that's something that will be kind of in full force this year so anticipation would be we start to see that um but I think because the Gap was so significant to start with math as well it's going to take that much time a little bit longer to be able to to approach to close that Gap Dr Eon I don't know if there's anything you else your insights you want to add I think superintendent you said it well um I would just remind the committee and remind the public that immediately returning from um from the pandemic we saw a sort of significant and quick increase in math outcomes for students both on mcast and map I think what we're starting to see now is that the sort of Investments we've made relative to creek k to2 literacy is starting to potentially show some evidence starting the map data suggesting that it is you are correct it is a leading indicator we are hopeful based on the data that we're seeing around map that we'll see some interesting and positive Trends around mcast literacy rates as a result of that um so as a follow-up question thank you for that whoever wants to answer it you know we have a number of transformation schools and you kind of made a generic statement of we're seeing quote unquote some prog or increase in seven of nine is it across the board in all transformation schools is it 75% is it and and what I'm tying it to more is the conversation we had earlier this spring about Equitable literacy and when schools get to choose curriculum and when the district says okay you're moving curriculum and so can you dig in a little bit please on that seven of nine increase seven of nine grades is that a Ross the board for the transformation schools is it are you seeing some things that are causing you to say we're going to make changes we're gonna make changes to sorry we're gonna make changes what I I didn't um are we gonna make changes to curriculum in these schools we're gonna say this isn't working we're moving to that um I think I think the blueprint that the district implemented relative to literacy is instructive for the way that we have to approach math we are more advanced and evolved as a district around hqm or highquality instructional materials in literacy we made a big bet on this uh particularly in in terms of our implementation of Expeditionary Learning in study sync these are highly rated highquality materials we are multiple years of implementation we are we have been slower to adopt hqm and Mathematics and under Beth mooki and and uh Chief uh Ryan Miller we have made significant progress in making uh following the patterns that we did in literacy to make sure that we're implementing this in mathematics we're just a year or two behind around hqm implementation in mathematics we will get to full implementation of that within the next year and I understand that and you don't want to keep changing because it becomes disruptive for teachers which becomes disruptive for students if you're changing curriculum right it's once you've decided on one but I do as we talked about with Dr CH earlier this year you know schools still often have a choice of curriculum and when you go and talk to school leaders well I chose this for K to2 and I chose this for you know 3 to8 Etc and I'm wondering if we're narrowing down where we're seeing you know doubling down where with curriculum that we're seeing results from yeah we have done that and so we have District supported curriculum that the district is purchasing for schools and providing all the professional development associated with that that's the district's commitment to schools we allow schools in some cases to make choices different than that but we have two expectations one if you're not going to choose the district supported curriculum you need to complete a racial Equity planning tool and number two the materials you do select have to be highly rated by Ed reports or curate and so you may choose a different curriculum but they have to be highly rated and so we've gotten to a point now where the vast majority of our schools are adopting the district supported curriculum the materials that we are paying for as a system and we are providing the professional development through um Chief Ryan Miller's team okay thank you thank you madam chair I just want to explore one more area if that's okay um it's about thank you Mr Eon Dr Eon Dr right Dr eckson sorry about that um and that is in operations I read with interest this memo and I love to see all the different projects going on particularly you know summer and planning but many are being done this summer I did have a couple of questions in particular about handling if that's okay that's coo Mr Ford oh okay um so you know I can't help but comment on a day that was 97 degrees as I was leaving Charlestown this afternoon and have a broken AC myself that you know I feel for our students and our teachers in Hut buildings and they're not getting any they're not getting any better right it's it's this is continuing and um I look at the list and I see for example about Chiller replacement they handling it I know we say we're up to 90 plus percent but in many cases that was putting a unit in a window in a classroom right so it doesn't cover the cafeteria it doesn't cover the auditorium it doesn't cover the bathrooms the hallways that type of thing so it's a positive step but we got a long way to go and in particular I think of one school the you know the Elliott has three buildings the middle one that we run into at a few years ago on Salem Street was designed and built for air conditioning and to save money a little bit of money at the time air conditioning was pulled out the unit was not put in the roof and it was erroneously stated in a community meeting that it's because of school committee policy that air conditioning can only go in buildings that are used during the summer it's no one in this room said it don't worry about it um um but you know I can State pretty emphatically that that school committee policy does not exist and if and if it if it did for some reason many years ago Madam chair I think we should certainly think as a body in saying any work being done we should be putting in you know air air conditioning or appropriate Cooling in in any building that we're working on um but um long way of saying I see two that have Chiller replacement one has an air handleing unit replacement three having cooling tower Replacements are we looking at any buildings that could handle central air and I would think it'd be more economical to put one unit in once than 100 window units so to speak sorry long way to get at it no that's that's all right and I definitely thing you need is hot air on a day like today right but you understand what I'm getting at right AB absolutely so I think um definitely appreciate the question it definitely makes a lot of sense for us to be looking at total Solutions every time that we go into a building especially for the first time that we're going to be there so we don't have to revisit it uh when it came to the air handlers um that are being replaced currently the chillers that are being replaced currently those are for buildings that are currently making their way towards end of life and don't have another option for us to make sure cooling is provided throughout those entire spaces so 20 and 30 year old uh devices and pieces of equipment putting in the window units was our way for us to provide the thermal comfort in a short time period over kind of what it is that total ventilation which comes with a large overhaul and oftentimes a large Capital project for an entire building um we are actually moving forward with three buildings that are uh in between Solutions right now they we're not able to handle any of the air conditioning and so we are able going to be be able to provide uh heating ventilation and Cooling in some of these schools so we go and are doing the work once when we get to reviewing buildings that happen to be new build such as uh the Elliott school um a lot of times when we're working with Engineers they design for 80% of days 80% of used days and that's why you might see an over engineering situation where they pull out something like the cooling but we could always ask for it to be put in place and that's something we'll definitely exercise in the future thanks I I I bring this up as an example I suspect we may have some other buildings like this because the decisions made in the past it was designed for it and then oh you know let's save a little bit of money we don't have to put it in but it would be a I think a fairly simple fix and then you've really transformed the building no pun intended so um thank you for that and while I have you here if you don't mind and if it's not you if it's Mr Deena that's fine I see on the list of the um the um Ruth Batson Academy the work that's being done this summer I do seem to recall specific discussions by the chair and myself asking about the potential for lockers and lights for the very dim hallways is there and I didn't see that on the list yes so good afternoon Brian Ford inter chief of operations forgot to mention this last time but I'm definitely mentioning it now um yeah we were working on the locker so I do have to figure out what the delivery on that is we didn't explicitly mention it the work that we have listed for the Ruth Batson Academy is mainly for the work that's happening to outfit the de portion of the building so that we can handle the students coming over from the hi the hide park building right absolutely we we didn't forget about the other request I do want to make sure that it's clear we do have our electrical team that's going out there and doing troubleshooting and as they work to bring in additional conduit for making sure we can run the PA systems between both buildings to communicate effectively they will be making sure that we can uh where possible refresh the lighting in there I think a lot of it has to do with the fixtures so we'll have to continue to work on different situ Solutions in that space excellent thank you very much thank you and thank you both I think for coming back from vacation for for tonight to be here for us thank you for that thank you m i too want to um give my thanks very much to you Mr rine for all of your work um it has been tireless I have watched you I have heard what you've been doing I've seen you in action and um you will be greatly missed but um we really want to thank you for all that you have done for us for so many years so you um thank you Mr O'Neal for asking most of my questions you think I like Madam chair right but um I do I still do have um couple um one of the things I know maybe we don't have this information yet but I knew that you said that um there were approximately 6,000 high school students that applied for jobs and over half of those are are kids well I know we have many more than 3,000 kids so I'm wondering if we know if there were kids who who applied but did not receive a job through this process uh thank you chair so uh right now to the best of our understanding students were able to get jobs if they applied uh it's a like every week it's the numbers come in differently so that's the latest um and it's uh I believe over the next two weeks that's when the numbers will jump further because that's when we're making our last placements uh in addition to the pick jobs uh in in addition to the youth jobs there's obviously uh students have uh in our fifth quarter also have jobs so what we try to do for that end of August report is pull together all of the employment opportunities that our youth had what I was very pleased about was a couple things one was first of all our mayor's commitment that any youth of age that wanted a job could have one uh secondly was the flexibility of the team to do on-site registration which in my experience with secondary students is huge uh because we always expect them to go to whatever it is and for us to go uh do job fairs answer questions I think that's really what um prompted the numbers to be so much higher this year so and that's just huge flexibility uh for our team the city team and and pick uh most of all that really enabled that to happen so I think each year we get better and better at this and we'll have the final numbers shair toward the end of August I have a similar question about um the number of Elementary age students participating in Fifth Quarter um because I had raised a concern before the end of the year about particularly how were we reaching out to families who would have the need but might not not make the registration and were there any particular Outreach from classroom teachers to families around kids for whom they would love to have seen so Dr Taris it might be interesting for you to give your lens on this but this was really where uh it was a joint effort of family Liaisons uh classroom teachers for sure uh of being able to identify with school leaders uh students and families that we needed to do the initial Outreach to and um you know it was a rolling registration which I also think has been incredibly important because as families find out sometimes they get boxed out if there's a hard deadline and instead the team was committed to that flexibility so I think for all those reasons we've been able to really fill our programs you know really in a healthy way but Dr devaris did you want to add anything else I mean I superintendent you covered it really well um but is there anything in particular that would be helpful to know any details I just whether there was you know okay so for one group I was concerned about were some of the migrant students you know were they able I know people are moving around but were are there kids that were able that are have been able to participate or in in schools I'm particularly thinking of our transformation schools um and whether or not what you know I don't know we don't have any data that says percentage of students in this school that are actually participating in summer program pramming and do we see you know schools where there's been a high number of people registering and are there schools where there are kids who are great risk but are not participating to begin to see who's taking advantage y or is aware of what the resources are as we figure out how are we're going to help close gaps for our kids well thank you for that clarification I would say that um the team and I are most proud of the Outreach that we've done with our migrant families I would say that that's something that we as a system and as a team which includes all of you as well we can be very proud of our family liaison to superintendent comment earlier they have been the Lynch pin to make sure that our families have access to information know what programs are available are able to even navigate the web and even na not the web the the page where all the information of summer is uploaded it's been an incredible opportunity for us having been so Hands-On in receiving families that relationships were built when they first arrived and those relationships we've been able to tap into in order to make sure that students are enrolled do we provide I know we provide transportation for select programs do we provide it for anyone who needs it or are there other programs for which parents have to get their kids there themselves I would say this year we really focused on making sure that our students in esy were the ones according to their IEPs had transportation that was our Focus for this summer programming year and we tried to make sure that families that chose programs also understood where the programs were so it can make it easier for the families to facilitate taking their child so the concentration of availability of transportation again were for students with iips who required Transportation because we wanted to make sure those students had that support okay yeah that that helps to understand sort of what what the opt options and choices really really are thank you okay my last question goes back to the issue around the um the improvements of both the reading and the map and I was wondering if what grade if we know the grade levels and I was interested particularly in when when I think it was Dr Egleston was talking about um the choices schools make around their curriculum and my question is as they make those choices do they look at at the handoff and transition from one grade to the next to figure out whether our whether the choices are making sure that students are progressing in ways that make sense for students versus a curriculum choice that may be great programming but in the long run isn't giving our kids what they need yeah so I know um Dr Leslie Ryan Miller is in the audience and since this is a c a curriculum question or Dr Eon either one but um what I will say is as they're thinking about who's going to come up uh what I will what I will say is that um I think that the team has done such an incredible job raising awareness of the importance of the culum and the fact that it is high quality that now within the internal conversations that are happening with schools were much more focused about students grade to grade um and you know remember when we get achievement the achievement speaks to last year and so we tend to then zero in on that grade when it's actually the following grade that we really need to be thinking about addressing so I think because of that the calibration of the regional Network and the work that Dr Ryan Miller's team is doing on the curriculum side it's lending itself to think more K12 uh or PK to 12 than we've ever before hi good evening um and chairperson Robinson I heard just a portion of your question do you mind just repeating it so I make sure I answer it in full so I'm I'm interested in understanding basically what the superintendent just said so what's happening as kids transition from one grade to the next because I know there may be a k to2 curriculum and then a three to what five or whatever so my question is is kids transfer from or you know get promoted from grades two to grades three does the curriculum support and connect that learning so that there isn't a gap in the learning so that whatever the math skills that you got K to2 are they picked up and continued without a missing a beat in grade three or does there you know so how do we see how do we understand where we are making progress sure in certain grades but or not and wanting to understand as much about where we're not making progress and why as where we are okay thank you for repeating that um so I think this really stresses the importance of Standards aligned curriculum and that's one of the pivotal pieces of high quality instructional materials is making sure that the standards are addressed in the grade levels where appropriate and so um any um high quality instructional material that's deemed by desie should do that it should make sure that if in grade two they're looking at I'm just saying this but fractions um that it's addressed in the curriculum at a specific point in time and so hqm ensures of us of that um but one of the pivotal things that we have to to do um is make sure that our Educators understand that and understand the importance of staying on Pace with the curriculum um one of the things that I talked about when I was here in the spring um is sometimes in classes uh seeing that there's some o overs scaffolding happening um which means that we're taking more time in a particular area which then means students are missing something else because our time is so finite um and so it's having those conversations with teachers so they understand here's a skill that a child might have in week five of school and it comes back again in week eight and them understanding that um and also understanding that they have to hit all these points so that our students aren't missing particular standards that then either uh make it so that when they are engaged in an assessment they haven't seen the material before or when they get to the next grade they're not prepared because they haven't seeing what comes before that what the prerequisite is so that's that's one of the reasons why we put a lot of stock in hqm because it does that hard work of Standards alignment for us but it's the our job is really the professional development uh that goes along with that great thank you uh may I have a followup question to that yeah thank you thank you for for explaining everything pretty clearly um I continue to have I I knew it I continue to have um concerns or let Let's uh ambivalence about how do you come up with HQ definition and um when you meet with schools maybe you know the school administration uh principls and director of a curriculum and of course there there there there are some schools that did not want to use the HQ IM material and and prefer to stay on with their own standard of curriculum or whatever [Music] sure what what what what what are the the the the conflicting reasons for not choosing what you decide as a hqm and and their own decision of staying on their their you know their their curriculums and how do we reconcile those differences sure so we really lean on desie um around they have a site called Ed reports um that outlines the different there's a rubric in terms of how they evaluate curriculum as being hqm or not and so we really rely on Ed reports and Cur rate um as those are Ed reports is National um and so we look they they do the heavy lift of going the laborous work of going through the the curriculum making sure it's standards aligned um vetting it for cultural responsiveness and making sure it is free of bias content um so that's kind of our starting point in terms of how we deem something as hqm in terms of District supported curriculum we have pulled from that list of hqm and then done our own assessment of the curriculum using a racial Equity planning tool um and really engaging with various constituents in the community um one of the things just to share I'm really proud of um I don't know if you remember it was months ago there was a gentleman from Bla his name was Andrew Pierre and he came to public comment and just talked about the curriculum that they would like to see in classrooms uh he is a member of the mayor's uh youth uh task force and and um after that um we were in close communication and he and some other uh students who were on the mayor's task the I'm sorry it's the mayor's youth Council um they have now formed an Advisory Group specifically for teaching and learning and so um I just say that to say that in terms of student engagement and the content that they find engaging I'm really happy to have their voice at the table going forward um that being said uh I think one of the things that is hard well one change is just hard so I want to put that out there um and also many times particularly in the secondary space um teachers have created the material that they're using and sometimes they get a fabulous response from students um in terms of their engagement and and sometimes there is the student um achievement that follows that we'd like to see sometimes there's not and um it has to be that students are engaged in the curriculum that they see themselves looking good in the curriculum but also that we're enabling them with the information they need to make the academic progress that we expect them to make and so that's really the push with hqm um you know we we've had some push back but one of the things that I found really helpful is myself or members of the teaching and learning team we go out we meet with the teachers we talk through their concerns and I'll be honest sometimes they have some valid concerns concerns right they'll say this curriculum I want to see more novels that reflect this um and we take that back to the vendor and quite frankly the vendors have been very helpful in making those changes because we spend a lot of money with them and so they need to know that having you know us as customers means that sometimes we need changes for in the for the benefit of our students um so I think doing that has brought more schools in and we're really getting to a place where folks who are not using hqm are fewer and further between um so that's that's where we want to go and and you know again we do try to be understanding that that this is change for folks and it has to happen for students so um I think conversations are one of the things that have helped to move the needle and the support of school leaders for sure another follow-up question because curriculum development and teacher training was part of my duty about 40 40 plus years ago so um I understand I when you talk about te teachers who develop their own curriculum and and and and and students respond to that positively and now we are trying to um install some changes and and of course they're going to be opposition they're going to be push back I understand that because I went through that as well the the the question I have is how how sure are you that once they adopt the the the the the the curriculum they will follow through with it rather than you know re reverting back to their own curriculum sure so this is where we really rely on our school leaders questions um this is where we rely on our school leaders and we also rely on the liaison and the regional model um to be in class rooms to see what's happening to ask questions if something's not being used um I I want to you know I want to be genuine and say yes there are times we've bought curriculum and I will go into a classroom and that's not the curriculum being used so then that means that necessitates a conversation with the school leader with the liaison with the regional soup to first get a better understanding of why it's not happening sometimes those reasons can be valid sometimes they're not and so we have to have conversations about the why and then what needs to happen um you know I think I gave an example last time of just a particular School saying hey we use this text it's this play um by an author that's from Dudley that's from Nubian square that we want to continue to use and the reaction is you can still use that you can use that along with the hqm and that's where the liaison and coaches are helpful they can have those coaching conversations to say okay let's look at the scope sequence of the material let's look at what you're trying to use let's figure out where these things can be integrated in a way that your students are not going to miss what they are they should have they have to receive standards aligned instruction if we don't give that to students and then we assess them it's just not fair and so those are the conversations that that we're having and I and I will say our educators are stepping up they hear that um and they also want to be heard so we we hear them as well it will reflect in their evaluation thank you thank you thanks a lot thank you thank you all right so okay so I think we are now ready to um I'll now entertain a motion to receive the superintendent's report is there a motion so Mo thank you is there a second second is there any discussion or objection to the motion is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent hearing none the superintendent's report is approved we'll now move on to General Public comment thank you chair the public comment period is an opportunity for parents caregivers students and other concerned parties to make brief presentations to the school committee on pertinent School issues questions on specific School matters are not answered this time but are referred to the superintendent for a later response questions on specific policy matters are not answered this time but may be the subject of later discussion by the committee the meeting will feature two public comment periods with the first comment period limited to 1 hour priority will be given to those testifying in person time permitting the committee will then open it up for virtual testimony after 1 hour anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do so at the end of the meeting we have five speakers this evening each person will have 3 minutes to speak and I will remind you when you have 30 seconds remaining if your remarks are longer than 3 minutes please email your comments for distribution to the committee the time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time speakers may not reassign their time to others large group addressing the same topic are encouraged to consolidate their remarks or those or choose a spokeperson to provide testimony please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or District staff please St your name affiliation and what neighborhood you are from before you begin we will begin this evening with our in-person speakers we will begin with John mud and deed ranning John mud good evening my name is John mud I'm uh a longtime education advocate in Boston and a resident of Cambridge BPS used the allegation of segregation as a way to justify assigning multilingual students into the general education classes with ESL I think many thought and many continue to think that they are follow foll in the Progressive Boston tradition of desegregation in supporting this plan they are wrong during the discussions of the 50th anniversary of the busing decision I was surprised to learn that judge GED himself the champion of desegregation recognized and authorized the grouping of English Learners so that they could have the benefits of bilingual education programs acknowledging the harm that the dispersal of el students could do in the implementation of the initial veg order he issued a supplemental order on June 5th 1975 that specifically authorized the clustering of el students as necessary for their education just as judge GED recognized the harm that the dispersal of multilingual students under the D order could do to these students BPS should recognize the harm the pro the proposed inclusion plan could do for these students you should reverse course and stop the simplistic implementation of inclusion for multilingual students into General Ed and should instead focus on increasing access to native language and the expansion of bilingual education programs that the evidence shows will benefit these students as part of this process look at the data you say you are evidencebased and datadriven with a focus on student outcomes if you look there is existing data in Boston about the inclusion of multilingual Learners in general education with ESL which should inform your decisions about further implementation of the inclusion plan for these students already about 40% of ELD 1 to3 multilingual students are assigned to J Ed with ESL this is the exact model of ml inclusion that is being planned data given to you for 2023 already shows that only about 5% I repeat 5% of all English learned past mcast only about 30% are meeting their English development targets school committee should now ask the district to provide outcome data for the 2024 access tests and the 2024 mcast results for these students when they are available in the fall with those results in hand you can then make a data deriven evidence-based decision about whether to continue further inclusion stud in general education thank you please follow through and get the report next speaker Stan good evening my name is deardra Manning I'm a Dorchester resident parent of two uh daughters one a BPS student the other a charter school student um please cue to the 1 hour and two-minute Mark of my testimony from the June 17th meeting uh for my previous testimony that tied in the Discrimination that my great-grandmother faced and the Discrimination my mother advocated against in the 1950s when she tried to get the principal of the high high Elementary SCH School in Roxbury to ride the required letter of recommendation for Jane Dietrich her eighth grade student of West Indian Heritage Jane Dietrich ended up somehow getting into nor Eastern University despite being prevented from attending girls Latin unfortunately she only completed one year of college I suspect that if she had been allowed to attend girls Latin she might have had the support of Mentor she needed to earn a college degree children who for the last three years have been denied a seat at an exam school have lost an opportunity that that can't be regrained what Boston Public Schools is doing may be legal but it is not Equitable I was encouraged to hear that Vice chair O'Neal consulted with outside expert recently on the issue of school choice I hope that school committee members would engage with parents so that they can better understand the inequities of the exam school policy being provided with a two or three minute period to form school committee members is not an efficient use of anyone's time and does not give parents or stakeholders a platform for effecting change during during the pandemic I helped my children with virtual school and worked my paid job late into the night after they went to bed even if I were aware of the virtual meetings of the exam School task force there was no way I could have participated the interests of all exam eligible students in the city were not represented or advocated for as part of this process High achieving students like Jane Dietrich should not have been excluded from educational opportunities in the past please don't perpetuate a policy change that is excluding different students now thank you thank you we will now transition to Virtual testimonies our next speakers are Muhammad leis EDI Bazil and Mike heishman I do not see Muhammad leis in the meeting so Ed it Bazil is it my turn you can start thank you in 2023 BPS Nate fourth grade black white reading Gap was 23 points it almost doubled to 42 points in 20 by 2022 2023 mcast data shows no literacy growth for black students using Maps as ass summative assessment data as was done here tonight is frankly dishonest Focus The Early Childhood curriculum widened literacy gaps for over a decade and it is not validated by Ed reports children who fail to read become adults who struggle with joblessness homelessness and mental health issues this year the chair said quote the whole city thinks we should feed them clothe them do everything but basically give birth to them and oh by the way can you teach them to read and write she added quote superintendent Skipper I've got your back perpetuating anti-black stereotypes while ignoring failed literacy policies exacerbate intergenerational black wealth gaps and places black families in a constant state of fight or flight for the right to read in BPS 50 years after desegregation black students are still still segregated into poorly resourced chronically underperforming schools while white and Asian students are clustered into wealthy High performing schools Skipper's first action was to modify exam school admissions for white comfort and endorse moving the O'Brien named after a black man to White West Roxberry meanwhile Skipper renames chronically failing schools after great black leaders while abandoning racial Equity Dr K G Woodson a 1930s Harvard researcher black Harvard researcher affirmed the benefits of black Educators long before the John Hopkins study yet Skipper pushed out Dr granson chief of equity and strategy then eradicated racial Equity initiatives black educat fought for since desegregation she moved the office of equity under human capital and in a final blow to racial Equity checkpoints disarmed the vision of the a o a task force sending the message of if you're black and advocate for racial Equity step back when will this school committee hold Skipper accountable for creating an evidence-based racial Equity infrastructure for continuous Improvement instead of promoting token programs that don't address closing long-standing gaps for black students thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Mike hman Mike hman dochester soon the school committee will evaluate the superintendent will you invite the community to participate in this essential activity or once again will only your voice matter and who will evaluate the school committee the public does they called elections what oops unlike every community in our state You Are Not Elected by the community and thus not accountable to the public you are political appointments are accountable to only one person mayor woo and you only see in hear what will please the boss a big part of the leadership's job is to stay and control the message an important part of your job is to supervise the superintendent did you hear that black and brown central office workers had been fired and replaced by those loyal to the superintendent did you hear that CH Dr Charles granson the chief Equity officer wrote about these concerns to miss Skipper and was fired did you hear at the last meeting silence speaks a 100 plus voices beyond the trauma did you bother to read the report written by many past and present BPS educational leaders the authors believe that the major reason for the retaliation and harm done to them it's because they had dared to speak out in opposition to miss Skipper's policies will the superintendent or you bring this up at tonight's meeting I doubt it I was right this report characterizes BPS as a heartless vindictive racist and sexist organization that retaliates against employees who question their actions this report charges that the superintendent is dismantled policies and practices focus on advancing racial equity and is silenced employees who question these actions this report charges that BPS is a large complex system that cares more about Optics using backro deals making to cover up individual scandals this report charges that the real story in BPS is the entrenched dysfunction of central office that prevents our schools from advancing this is a story of a cancer that is to spread through much of our district over time unless this dis disease is acknowledged and dealt with every school and every child will be infected silence speaks G and Agony and Calla on you to do your job and investigate these charges what are you going to do about this report in these serious charges will you do your job or will you continue to be complicit in enabling a racist traumatic dysfunctional system to continue to harm many of our children and the BPS employees who have been hired to care and educate them thank you thank you that concludes public speaking thank you Miss PX and thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives your testimony is very important to us our only action item this evening is the grants for approval totaling 3,470 693 now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final remarks wonderful thank you chair so before you you have six grants that are totaling uh 3,470, 693 uh just a few things to call out I think the adult literacy Grant um this one really is around uh it's an exciting Grant it's around providing High School in English language classes to adults in Boston so this is through our adult Ed Branch uh it also has a diploma bearing arm uh and it it offers uh English language classes for parents uh the other one that I wanted to just mention was there's a comprehensive school health Grant um which obviously is helping us with um case management relative to our nurses uh so fully supportive of this uh and then there is uh the Intensive assistance grant and this is the large uh million uh $1,332 th000 Grant and this is relative to uh academic acceleration eies so uh I would just these are all grants that will support our students our staff uh the forward movement of the district and I would just appreciate uh positive vote on this by school committee thank you any questions okay there's no dis further discussion I'll now entertain a motion through the B approve the grants as presented is there a motion so Mo thank you is there a second second thank you is there any discussion or objection to the motion is there any objection to approving the grants by unanimous consent hearing none the grants are approved okay so tonight I wanted to have a brief discussion about the superintendent's evaluation process the annual evaluation of the superintendent is a core responsibility of the school committee outlined in our bylaws specifically in article 6 section 1D this section mandates that quote the school committee will annually evaluate the superintendent's performance periodically it will develop with the superintendent a set of performance goals and objectives based on the needs of the school system the superintendent's performance will be reviewed in accordance with these specified goals the last time we came together as a governing board to establish goals was before superintendent Skipper joined us during the fall of 2024 the school committee will convene to revisit our current goals and establish new ones aligned with our District's priorities these goals will be centered on fostering high expectations for student achievement and will be accountability driven this year as I did last year I have requested Dr Steven alkins and vice chair Michael O'Neal to spearhead the evaluation process I am pleased to share that they have kindly accepted the responsibility we will evaluate Miss Skipper in accordance with the standards provided by des's framework instructional leadership management and operations family and Community engagement and professional culture for this year's evaluation the superintendence goals align to what we as a school committee shared in our summative evaluation line last year I have also asked the superintendent to share the accomplishments and challenges of the district that aligned to her goals the superintendent will complete a written self- evaluation that will be shared with the committee each Committee Member is then asked to complete an individual evaluation Dr alkins and vice chair O'Neal will compile our Collective thoughts into a summative evaluation that will be presented at a special special virtual meeting on Monday August 19th we will vote on the superintendent's evaluation at our August 28th meeting the timeline for the superintendent evaluation can be seen here I ask that tonight's discussion focus on the evaluation process after members receive the superintendent self-evaluation there will be opportunity for followup conversations to answer question questions regarding the content of the evaluation Rebecca Granger senior advisor to the mayor for Youth and schools will help support throughout the evaluation process okay now I will open it up to the floor for questions and comments from the committee regarding the um evaluation process CH thank you chair um for sharing the timeline I'm more curious if we have specific dates on when we're going to be receiving the individual evaluation forms and when is expected to send you sent to back to the vice chair and Dr Al gonna ask Rebecca I'm sure you're gonna send as a follow-up email but just for the purpose for the public to have awareness of what those dates are would be helpful as well y definitely thank you member uh Lima Barbosa um the self evaluation will come to you on uh July 24th along with the um individual evaluation um that you will fill out and then those will be um returned on August 1st to be compiled into the um Summit of evaluation so it'll give members a week to complete okay and then just curious if in the in the past when superintendents have been evaluated has there ever been uh the public has ever participated is that's something that just just curious because I know a lot of conversations that we have is about Community process I know this is very specific we are the ones that are here to supervise but just something that was mentioned and I'm just curious on how um not in my tenure Mr O'Neal so um great question evaluating the superintendent is one of our four key responsibilities right so as school board members we set policy and this is set by our bylaws and what set up Bost in public schools so and I know I'm being repetitive but you've said this for the public so I'll State as well U we set the policy for the district we hire a superintendent to implement that policy we approve a budget that allows the superintendent to implement the policies we set we evaluate and approve ultimately approve um and we evaluate the superintendent on how they are doing against the policies that we set so it is a key responsibility of ours and we are expected to be informed throughout the year in how we believe the superintendent is doing we listen to public comment we talk to school leaders we talk to teachers we talk to parents we talk to community members Advocates Etc and we form our own individual opinions that are clearly informed by feedback we we receive including listening to public comment um and then we write individual valuations and then what Dr alkins and I do is put it together in a summary evaluation that is supposed to reflect the tenor I mean we look at what the individual votes are right and make sure we show what the average is what the highs the lows were we look at the summary to make sure that it reflects the tenor of the comments you know what were common themes across it what was someone that just one member brought up and then um we present the summary document along with the superintendent's um evaluation in a public meeting which will be virtual and discuss it right so we each we get to see and by the way and this is a reminder um your individual evaluation is a public document so your individual evaluations will be well that has surprised some members in the past so I make sure to state that your individual valuation and the summary valuation is released publicly and is discussed at the public meeting at which time there is also public comment and feedback we do not vote on it at that meeting we vote on it um at a later meeting I think it's scheduled for August 28th our next inperson meeting um so is there opportunity for public feedback the opportunity for public feedback is throughout the year quite frankly we heard comments tonight from how people feel the superintendent is doing we also talk to school leaders teachers Etc and that informs our decision process hope that helps no no it does help thank you for going a little bit deeper too on just like the expectations of the overall process and for the friendly reminder that we're constantly hearing feedback not only about the superintendent but just the overall district and I think that of course will influence our own personal opinions but I was more asking if there was like a formalized way with the evaluation but I think it's totally fair not only for through public testimony but through the ways that we are engaging with family members and staff and Educators so thank you for that and I think it's good to remind Folks at home as well that their voices are being heard um in these different Avenues so thank you that is all for me it is yeah and I'll just say as a follow on to that like I don't I don't reach my um uh points that I make in the evaluation by myself and a vacuum they are informed by people that I'm speaking to in the district throughout the year and observations I've made visiting schools with the superintendent Etc um and whether I'm with her or not the feedback that I have heard um and and so that informs right the the um evaluation that I do which is a very important part of our responsibility as a member so thank you I I also um if if I may point out here one more pment as much as we are evaluating the superintendent on the four standards set out by desie and the goals we set last year I point out the other important piece is at the end when we make recommendations on areas we want to see the superintendent focus in on because those become the goals of the following year so what we're evaluating the superintended on in the context of the Desi standards are specific goals that we as a committee last year put in the summary evaluation and voted on that this is what we want the superintendent to focus in on in the coming year so that second piece that you do is equally important to your evaluation of how she is done in the past year what you're saying you believe is important she focusing on in the next year one final because I just I just remember that Diego is no longer here would this process even if we let's say we had a student here um would the student uh representative still be able to participate or is it just uh for the voting they parp the student would to be able to participate okay just curious yeah no student participated last year well just just just a quick comment I've I've been involved in in this kind of uh evaluation of the superintendent for the last six years uh criteria set forth either by the by Desi or by this board you know in in terms of evaluating her uh the superintendent are supposed to be uh objective and it and they are objective but in my in my own assessment in my own reading of uh past uh past evaluations from Members I do somehow see subjective uh comments in it and I'm I'm just reminding everybody that subjective comment should not be part of that because they are public documents thanks thank yeah thank [Music] you Michael any other comments okay well then we will look forward to receiving the materials and look forward to our conversation on August 19th wonderful um and in the interim I just want to say that as people are going through their process um there will be opportunity for people to have direct conversations with superintendent um yeah it's part of their thinking oh thank you for so yeah okay all right we'll now return to public comment we have one public speaker on report Ed Bazil thank you again Nikki Giovani said quote it is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend there is nothing more important than knowing where your child will be attending school the McKinley schools have been overlooked in every phase of build BPS then Along Came the green New Deal a press conferences conference promises of a rebuild envisioning meetings that turn out to be nothing more than empty broken promises making the green New Deal a hoax when it comes to racial Equity the McKinley schools which serves primarily black students suffer with no gym no Library no cafeteria no science lab and a crumbling infrastructure it struct structure is broken on the outside as well as the inside what has this Administration done to advocate for these students nothing but a performative name change and assigning appointing a new white leader with no experience and no family and Community input the Timothy was closed with callous indifference to black families and Community the shaw Community was tortured with threats of gr configurations that resulted in departure of a beloved principal and Trauma for students staff and family it is insulting that the majority of black non-white populated schools receive no attention from the Green New Deal while majority white and Asian population populated schools receive rapid response full rebuilds or Renovations meanwhile the office of family and Community advancement has been busy driving out more black and brown leaders and ignoring the voices of the community 3.8 million dollars was wasted on outside vendors who come up with nothing more than a r rck and a building condition analysis now the district is starting over with more money on another consultant which sounds like a Public Relation stunt a political cover to avoid making hard decisions during an election year the green New Deal has been a deep Money Pit for vendors leaving taxpayers with uncertainty on school closures and merges that has kept families suspended in a torturous state of uncertainty that un doubtedly has driven many families especially black families out of BPS this is totally unacceptable and a sign of incompetence from this leadership why does BPS need to hire an outsider consultant instead of listening to families and communities who are cultural insiders using racial Equity as a lens to determine the impact of decisions we've had multiple conversations over the year but yet there is no family and Community engagement where does the school committee stand on this it's time to speak up thank you thank you um that in that concludes our business oh excuse me is there any new is is there any new business well just a a very quick U uh request uh we all heard U one of one of the uh frequent U concerned citizen regarding uh the the U the implementation of of of the uh of grouping multilingual Learners with uh I I I I share that concern I strongly share that concern as a matter of fact I came here without having the the the uh without having the benefit of having a balango program so I struggle a pretty uh rigorously for the first 10 years of my life um so anyway I'm I'm requesting that just just to you know just to follow up on that I'm I'm requesting that the uh the the office do provide outcome data for the 2024 access and 24 M gas of uh ELD 13 uh three M ml students that before we we we decide or we we can make any kind of recommendation or advice to you know to the uh ongoing uh implementation of the inclusion program thank you chair I want to second that request you got their first but um and I think jar U and the superintendent I don't know if with that report but also just speaking on the work that Chief G has been doing with the omm team um you know I've been advocating uh and the community has been advocating for a while when it comes to the Kian Creole du langual we've been having meetings already so I think that could be a good opportunity of sort of providing an update and just looking at a little bit micro of like what the district is already trying to do also considering how is is going to be impacted if and when um the inclusion education program is imp implemented like how is that going to impact that work uh so just wanted to give a shout out to Chief uh G for taking that you know your your seriously about really looking into the cering community because for years it has been requested we can go back to many superintendent and Mayors and for once we're seeing some movement and and some realistic action steps not only from the district but like including the community um and folks that have been doing a lot of community engagement over the years but as we know more Community engagement doesn't hurt uh to make sure that we're actually meeting the needs of the folks that are actually present and the students are going to come so just wanted to Echo it uh Committee Member trans said and if we can emphas we will so thank you both uh we'll be uh when we do the access in the mcast report we will report out by all the ELD levels but with a particular concentration on the el3 uh as well as uh the transition of students who become uh former uh or what we call flep students um and then additionally on the programmatic development side we'll make sure that uh that the the chief cir uh talks about all the exciting work we're doing in the creation of new dual language programs transitional bilingual uh Heritage programming uh really all of it that's happening we have a bunch into Desi already for approval so we'll make sure that um um that the omme presents all of that information thank you just just a a very quick uh uh question maybe this question should be directed to us as a matter of fact what what is the uh the status of the elll task force I know disbanded are are we going to reopen or reorganize that soon we want to come back to together that's what we were talking about wanting to come together in the fall to talk about um out um goals outcomes but an unanswered question from last year is with the task force elll task force um opportunity and achievement gaps task force you know what structure can we have okay so that we make sure we have those voices represented and so we need to figure out what that structure is going to be to bring that group back or to bring those back whether it's that same structure or another one I think that's more the question but yes we very much want to with your permission when when is it reorganized weather I I like to be part of it yes okay yeah when I say follow the thank you for the question it's important for multilingual yeah students it's important too if you H that meeting is the last meeting right the year it start the uh the year um uh proo resolve what happened in the access exam for the student what is the result uh what happened for the student what is the evidence what is the progress you know for the next year I think it's important know that part yeah yeah 100% we'll time it um so that when we do it we can also do it with the mcast release so I work with schools on that to make sure that both get presented um the other exciting thing that's happening for our overaged uh multilingual Learners is we will be launching and opening bada East over in East Boston and so we'll make school committee aware of when that happens so that you can be part of that we're really excited about that for our students yeah at some point I would really like us to be able to understand comprehensively all of the different things that are going on with our work particularly with the multilingual learners one is to really understand what families want because sometimes I feel the voices of families get lost and I know not every family wants the same thing but would love to understand what are the kinds of variety of things that families are asking for and at the same time understanding what actually is moving the needle because sometimes what we want may not be the thing that actually improves outcomes or maybe you know where is is the learning and where is the coming together of all of the parties so that our students in the long run get the best of all worlds so that that's really the sort of that voice Clarity and then to understand the Myriad of wonderful things that are happening and understanding again qualitatively which of those things are actually helping our kids and young adults um make the mark because they it's it's critical and I think seeing that particularly the summer the number of multilingual Learners that have taken advantage of the variety of programming speaks e e for